In the context of the present invention, a presentation is a group of visual aids or slides that are designed and produced to deliver information, whether on a computer screen, a transparency, or overhead projector. On a personal computer system, a slide comprises one screen of information which corresponds to a photographic slide or transparency. Each slide may include text, graphics and charts, or any combination thereof, that is effective or delivering a desired message.
The slides comprising a presentation produced on a personal computer are stored together as a file. Playback of such files may be initiated automatically or manually. In automatic playback, each slide is displayed on a computer screen for a predetermined time before transition is made to the next slide and so on until all of the slides in the presentation file have been displayed. Alternatively, in manual mode, each slide is manually accessed and displayed for as long as the user wishes while discussing the topics shown.
Multi-media slides incorporate data from present-day multi-media devices to add sound effects, animation and video to the text, graphics and charts produced by the computer itself. Even if multi-media is unavailable, computer programs for producing presentations can add many special effects such as transitions between slides and animation.
Presentation graphics programs can also incorporate information created in another program, such as a spreadsheet application. Typically such presentations may be printed out to provide audience handouts and speaker notes.
GUIs for use on computer systems of all sizes and complexities have become extremely popular and important to operators and users of computer systems. It is now well recognized that recognizing graphics is faster than reading text. In the personal computer industry, the Macintosh GUI, produced by Apple Computer Company and Windows Interface Program GUI, produced by Microsoft Corporation, for use on personal computers, such as the PS/2 produced by IBM Corporation, provide convenient, well-known and easily recognized symbols, icons, screen paradigms and all other manner of graphical representations of computer functionality easily manufactured by users. The Iris System used on work station level computer systems, produced by Silicon Graphics, Inc., and Open Book, similarly used on work station computer systems produced by Sun Microsystems, Inc., both provide well-recognized, easily used GUIs. UIs provide enhancements and extensions to GUIs.
GUIs are often used with other applications programs such as word processing and spreadsheet programs. Thus, for example, Word Perfect 5.1 word processing may be used with Windows on a personal computer, model PS/2, produced by IBM Corporation.
While a GUI may be manipulated using a computer keyboard only, the pointing device of choice by most users is a mouse or track ball. These devices are used for moving a cursor across the screen of a computer system to point to or identify a particular object or function the user desires to access or initiate, respectively. Movement of the mouse or the trackball initiates corresponding movement of the cursor across the screen. When the cursor reaches the point or object of interest on the screen, the object is accessed or the function is initiated by actuating one of at least two buttons that form a part of the mouse or trackball.
It should be noted that some GUIs provide the capability to invert the typical functionality of the pointing device buttons. Therefore, while the so-called "left" button is active according to the usual convention, the "right" button may become active if so desired by the user. Thus, for purposes of describing the present invention, the first button refers to the usually active button for selecting objects and icons and initiating actions according to the prior art, and the second button will refer to the newly added functionality of a pointing device according to the present invention.
In a typical GUI, a menu is provided. A menu is a list of items presented to the user from which the user can select one or more items. The selection made by the user is interpreted by the application for whatever purpose it desires. Typically, it is interpreted as an action on a selected item (cut, copy, paste, delete, . . .) or the program or data as a whole (save, file, open file, spell check, . . . ).
A popup menu is a menu that is displayed to the user only temporarily. Through some activating sequence (a mouse click or a key stroke), the user activates the display of a list of items (a menu) from which the user is expected to make a selection. After the selection is completed, the menu is removed from the display. Thus, the menu is said to `pop up` in front of the user when requested and dismissed after used.
A tracked popup menu is a popup menu that is not anchored to appear in the same place on the screen every time it is invoked. A tracked popup menu is said to `float` about on the screen, appearing in the visual context that makes sense to the user. Typically, programs use tracked popup menus to temporarily provide a list of operations associated with a selected object on the screen near the object. Tracked popup menus may be activated by any sequence of events defined in the application. However, the accepted industry standard for access to a tracked popup menu is to click the right or secondary button of the mouse. Typically, in response to a `right` click, the application creates a tracked popup menu at or near the current location of the mouse. To date, tracked popup menus have been composed of individual text string and image items presented to the user as a list. It should be noted that, even though a prior art tracked popup menu is not anchored in the same place every time it is invoked, it cannot be dragged or moved on the screen once it is invoked.
As personal computers have become more powerful, in both the speed with which they process data and the amount of data they can process, the functionality and complexity of GUIs has grown. Correspondingly, the need to add functionality to pointing devices has similarly increased. Thus, it is desirable to add functionality to pointing devices by defining computer functionality and behavior upon actuation or pressing the second or right button of a pointing device over an object created by a user or a personal computer system having a GUI.
For purposes of describing the present invention, it should be noted that each slide comprises a template on which objects such as text, graphics and charts are placed. The template, as used herein, comprises a choice of background designs for enhancing display of the objects which appear to be overlayed on the desired background design. As indicated earlier, objects may also include video and animation, which also appear as overlays on the background design provided by the template.